This about enjoying life to the full with my lovely partner- I scream my head off here so I can pretend to be coping when I have to. MS has robbed my darling of the use of much of her body but has increased our determination to share our love to the full and get as much fun out this world as we can glean. Sometimes it all gets to much so I need to scream about it.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Happy birthday to all Shakespeare lovers.

A woman's face with Nature's own hand paintedHast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;A woman's gentle heart, but not acquaintedWith shifting change, as is false women's fashion;An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.And for a woman wert thou first created;Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,And by addition me of thee defeated,By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

The sonnets do have a homosexual love expressed in them. Shakespeare may well have had homosexual feelings for Southampton or he may have had the commercial acumen to write homosexual verse for a homosexual patron- Shakespeare was making a living! I think on balance he probably explored the homosexual side of his nature in more than verse. They are very erotic poems, on the other hand Shakespeare was a great writer with great humanity and could have just explored his nature artistically. Shakespeare was interested in the classical period and would have been aware of the institutional homosexuality of ancient Greece. It is likely that many renaissance artists would have seen it as enriching to develop such relationships.